Flame Lotus
by hidekey
Summary: Chimera!Roy with a twist. No cat or wolf or bird, this species is unique to the chimera stories I ve read so-far.


**Thank you guests for alerting me to the massively blinding chunk of text. I apologise for increasing anyone's glasses prescription! Even my own eyes strained while fixing that mess. One of the comments made me wonder if I didn't hint enough that the old lady in question is actually Dante, but perhaps the reviewer didn't watch the original anime; Dante did human transmutation habitually, controlling where she put her own soul and lived in it even while it rotted - Considering that, what she's doing to Roy isn't too far a stretch, is it?  
**

It was glaringly bright. _Somehow_, Roy thought, _I expected it would be a dark and dank prison - or at least a rundown empty warehouse. _ His kidnapping wasn't going at all as he'd expected.

First off, he'd expected to struggle. Some toppled furniture and maybe a scorch mark to show that he'd left his house unwillingly. Ah, but I hadn't left unwillingly! Not really. He'd thought his team would notice his absence immediately, and be on their way to help him escape - but they expected him to be embarking on a romance filled vacation in his lady-friend's family villa - or failing that to burst in, guns blazing, and rescue him! Though it would be a devastating blow to his pride (He'd told them all that she was 'The One' and had a ring in his pocket waiting for the right occasion), his pride would heal. His hands... they were fated to rot in some old lady's trash heap.

It had all been going well until the lovely lady Jezebelle introduced him to the kind old 'granny' who maintained the place in her family's absence. Granted, this wasn't your ordinary old lady! Ordinary senior citizens didn't send alchemically produced humanoids, one of which could shapeshift into a perfect replica of his lieutenant, to kidnap him! God, it was hard to think through all the pain, he'd only now thought to ask, "What did you do with the real Jean Havoc?" Well, that's what he tried to ask. What he heard from his own lips was a piteous

"Whh... Ha...voc?"

"Now don't you worry about him, precious." The sweet (NOT!) old lady cooed. "He'll wait for you to be..." She guffawed. Did she honestly just guffaw like a school girl in the middle of all this carnage?! "done with your union." The disjointedness of the situation made it all seem so surreal - or was that the blood loss? Likely a combination.

He wished he hadn't read the circle before he was laid helpless by his own bodyguard. His specialty may be flame alchemy, but he'd investigated enough rogue chimera alchemists to recognize the array at a glance. If that hadn't been enough, the dissertation the old woman gave him while she tortured him cinched it.

"Yuuu-geh... cot!"

"Ah, dearie! He's so cute," she told Jezebelle - whose real name was apparrently Lust. "He would have been a keeper if he wasn't such a bane to your brother!" He wouldn't cry over the woman's betrayal, even if the unnaturally strong hands that held him still bore the ring he'd custom ordered for her _(she wasn't even technically a woman!)_.

"Young man," she emphasized with a brutal slice to his abdomen. _Must be close to done, if she's moved on to the internal organs,_ he thought with misplaced releif. "I have friends in high places, and nobody will even know you are missing." His eyes widened in shock; of course! The shapeshifter who'd lulled him into misplaced security wasn't here to prevent him from struggling, it was here to take his place. At least that meant Havoc will be safe.

"Yes, my little love muffin!" Cooed Lust. "_Envy_ will be the envy of every officer in East City when he waltzes home with a fiance on his arm." She told Roy wistfully, then pouted: "though I wish you hadn't announced that annoying plan to practically everybody in the army," she told him flatly. As long as Havoc was okay, he could concentrate on himself. He could endure the worst this transmutation did to him if it meant he'd survive to protect his team!

"That's what I liked the most about you, Roy Boy!" Lust responded. "Even now, you're plotting your escape and our capture. That strong spirit is part of what we need you for in this experiment. Our other subject is somewhat... undisciplined."

"If I combine them just right, I should produce the perfect soldier. It's all about balance, you see." The old woman explained. When it came to alchemy, Roy absorbed the knowledge whether or not he cared, but now that he knew Havoc was safe he could concentrate on controlling his own situation. _Balance? _ That was a rare one for Chimera creation, but also the most likely to be successful. "I physically remove the parts I intend to replace with the other subject to create a single entity with perfection abundant! There will, of course, be more physical traits of the other subject, since your only truly unredeeming social quality is your selflessness. I need less of your body than is necessary to live, thus a second circle is already activated on our dining- er.. operating table that essentially keeps you alive beyond natural means. It holds your soul in that body so that you don't die, and you don't lose consciousness. Even when I do this!" The old lady demonstrated by digging her knife into his head from below, prying apart his brain from the inside.

He'd heard that the brain itself wasn't supposed to feel pain; if so, the dining table transmutation also allowed him enhanced perception! The right half of his brain tore away from what ever held it in place, and fell out after some further jabbing. "Oh dear! there goes the eye. Well, we'll see what we can selvage; bring in the other subject!" Lust let him go, to fetch this other subject, but Roy didn't have it in him to put up even a token act of defiance. If anyone were to look at what remained of him, they'd see nothing but resignation.

* * *

Slowly, his world transformed from simple pain, to simultaneous pain, before fading to blissfull unconsciousness. Sadly, though, even that was too-soon replaced with an awkward sense of mutilation, considering the pain level was somewhere between discomfort and stiffness.

He held his eyes shut for as long as he could, afraid of learning what animal he'd been fused with but also desperate to know. His body seemed normal enough; perhaps a bit bigger than he was used to, but maybe he was just on an abnormally small bed. His hands felt what they could; no scales, no fur, no feathers... and he had hands - not paws or fins... This was good, whatever the old lady combined him with, it was close enough to human for him to feel nothing more than a bit ...off. Perhaps a monkey or some other primate. With a long cloak, he might even be able to enter cities. He had to get to his team, to warn them that the Colonel Mustang they saw wasn't him!

Finally, he could bear it no longer: he opened his eyes. They were neither augmented nor inferior, picking out the details in his luxurious bedroom as they normally would. The right was -again- a little off but nothing outside the scope of human. He held his hand up.

Human, yes. His? No!

It was the wrong color - and big, with long fingers. It seemed outproportioned to the wrist, but he could tell that the wrist was from the same origin as its counterpart. He held up the other hand: it matched. Neither of them primate. These hands were human - purely human! He turned them over to look at the palms, and swallowed his heart. Reflexively, he started laughing. It was not his voice, but it was a voice he recognized.

He clenched the hands (Not his hands!) into fists to hide the arrays tattooed on his palms. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, but all that his body seemed capable of doing was that hideous laughter that brought back so many intentionally repressed memories of a man who enjoyed the slaughter in Ishval.

Another consciousness stirred within the body, _It isn't like I enjoyed it,_ the Crimson Lotus alchemist informed him_, it was just another job._


End file.
